Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling. No money is being made.
Warnings: This story will have Slash, violence and torture.
Chapter 3 – Strange alliance
When Harry woke up the next morning it took him a few moments to remember why he was lying in a bed and not in some forest floor. When he remembered he couldn't stop the cackle from escaping his lips. Either he had completely lost his mind or the previous night had truly happened.
There was only one way to be certain. Not that he didn't want it to be true, but he needed to make sure, he needed that small assurance. He needed to call Death. Just to be absolutely sure that he hadn't lost his mind. There was only a little problem, how did he call Death?
"Hello Harry."
"Shit!" Harry swore, almost jumping out of his skin. There, sitting on the edge of his bed, was Death. Harry glared at him when he laughed.
"Did you want something?" his eyes had that same warmth in them that Harry remembered from the previous night.
"I... I just needed to be sure." murmured Harry, momentarily forgetting his annoyance at being startled. "I don't know what to do. I know what I want, but I don't really know where to start. What if I do something wrong? What if the world is destroyed again?"
"Then it is." Death replied calmly, "The only thing that made me angry with the previous world's destruction was that you suffered. I am Death, Harry. The death of a planet is not something that saddens me. If you destroy this planet then we will move on to another one. It is as simple as that. You are no longer mortal, you are still a wizard, a human, but you are not mortal. For beings like us, the death of one planet is something quite insignificant."
Harry nodded. It made sense. Death had told him that he would outlive anyone and everything, he couldn't afford to let every single death affect him. Sooner or later it would drive him crazy, well crazier.
"I think I just needed a little push to accept that." whispered Harry, leaning back on his headboard. "I know you told me yesterday but I think I was to shocked to really understand what you were saying."
"It is understandable my son." Death assured him, a small smile on his lips, "Have you decided what to do then?"
"Speaking with Voldemort is the first thing on the list." Harry answered immediately.
"Do you have to?" Death grumbled and Harry chuckled when he saw his mulish expression.
"I thought that you would like him. Considering all the destruction, chaos and death that he causes I would have guessed that he was one of your favorite people."
"And he is." Death muttered, "I would just like him better if he stayed away from you, that's all."
It had never crossed his mind, but if it had, he was sure that he wouldn't have imagined Death as such a caring father.
"Thank you." Harry told him, making Death look at him curiously.
"For what?"
"Everything."
Death's eyes were filled with so much affection that Harry's breath caught in his throat. Slowly Death raised his hand, he gave Harry time to move away, when Harry didn't move he caressed his cheek and smiled at him.
"Anything for you, my son."
Harry felt his heart fill with happiness. He had waited a lifetime to hear those words and now he would have eternity to enjoy them.
The moment between them was broken when they heard someone coming towards the dorm.
"Call me if you need anything." Death told him and just when the door was opening he vanished.
Hermione walked in, she had a few toasts in her hand and looked slightly peeved.
"Good morning Hermione." he greeted her and she smiled at him, her annoyance vanishing when she saw him in such a good mood.
"Good morning. I thought that you would want to avoid the Great Hall this morning."
"Is it that bad?" he asked. He had been hopeful that things would have been better this time around.
"The Hufflepuffs, surprisingly enough, are angry about the situation but not with you. Most of those in sixth and seventh year are worried about you, especially those that wanted to participate. They read about the previous tournaments and tasks. The Ravenclaws are split, the older ones have no doubt that you did not enter, especially because you swore it on your magic. But the younger ones, especially the girls, support Cedric and think you are lying. The Slytherins... Well the Slytherins are the same as always. Gryffindor is one hundred percent behind you, at least most of them."
"Ron?" he asked and Hermione nodded. Harry wasn't the least bit surprised. Even thought he believed that Harry hadn't entered the tournament the jealousy was just too strong, "It's alright. I was expecting it."
"I don't understand why he's reacting this way." Hermione exclaimed sounding more frustrated than angry, "He knows that you didn't enter your name."
"Jealousy." Harry replied, "Ron always had an inferiority complex, this was just the breaking point. I think you should be with him. No, listen to me," Harry said forcefully when Hermione opened her mouth, "He's jealous, if you stay with me he will assume that you chose me over him. That will only increase the jealousy. Stay with him, let him calm down and then we'll see."
"What about you?" she asked him after a few moments.
"Well, today I'm going to find a secluded place and hide out. Tomorrow I'll go to the library to see what I can find about the tournament and see if I can find any hint about what the first task could be."
Reluctantly Hermione nodded.
"Alright, but only for a few days, then I'm helping you." Harry knew that there was no use arguing when she used that tone, so he just nodded. Hermione hugged him and left the dorm, muttering about beating some sense into red haired prats.
As soon as the door closed Harry slumped back on his bed. It was easier than he had thought to talk with Hermione. The talk he had with his father had helped. His Hermione was dead and this one would die too. He was immortal. He would live on long after she died. It didn't mean that he didn't miss his Hermione and that he didn't mourn her but he wouldn't let it consume him. The only thing he could do was to make sure that this Hermione had a better life than his did and if possible a longer life as well.
His father. It was so strange to think that. He had never even thought that he would be able to think it. He liked it, he liked it a lot. He may be over seventy years old but Death was eons of years older. He was a child compared to Death, or maybe a toddler. Besides, after everything that he went through he had the right to be selfish, to want something for himself and he had always wanted a father. Why should he deny himself something that he had always craved?
Nodding to himself he got up, he had a lot of things to do, he may as well take advantage of the alone time he had.
Harry whistled while he walked down the road. It had been far easier to get there than he had thought, not that he was complaining, it had made his life much easier.
Sneaking out was almost child's play, considering that there were no extra security measures because they weren't at war, then a ride on the Knight Bus and voilá.
Looking around to make sure that he was alone he sneaked inside the house. It was in a far worse state than he had thought, but considering the owners condition it didn't surprise him that he didn't have the time to clean it up a bit.
Walking up the stairs he went towards what he thought was a home office and opened the door.
"Hello Tom."
The next moment a familiar green light filled his vision.
"Son, just because you can't be killed doesn't mean you shouldn't dodge when you see the killing curse coming your way."
Harry opened his eyes and looked around. He was in the same office he had woken up when the muggle had killed him. Smiling sheepishly he got up from the couch he was lying on.
"Apparently Voldemort wasn't all that pleased to see me."
"Really? You don't say, who would have thought?"
The corners of Harry's mouth twitched.
"I thought that Avada Kedavras wouldn't affect me." he looked curiously at Death. Though he was slightly out of it the previous night he remembered that bit quite well.
"They don't. However you aren't used to it, so until you know how to really handle your powers you will most likely end up here. Though as you know I can send you back to right after you were hit so to people it would look like nothing happened at all. Once you know how to control your power you won't need me to send you back. You can be hit with the killing curse and continue to do whatever you were doing as if nothing happened." Death replied and Harry nodded. "You won't change your mind about this Voldemort business, will you?" Death asked looking resigned and Harry shook his head.
He wanted things with Voldemort to work out. Not only would it be better to have an ally to kill of around five billion muggles but Tom was brilliant. He didn't want for a mind like Tom's to be lost to insanity, not now that he knew how to stop it.
"There is something I have to ask you," Death told him, sounding more serious and Harry raised an eyebrow, "Now that you are back in your younger body, you still have the Horcrux in your scar. Do you want me to remove it?"
"No!" Harry answered immediately. Death looked at him and Harry became a bit flustered, "I want to keep it," he added almost defensively, "If Tom wants it I'll place it in another receptacle, but in the mean time I'll keep it."
"You missed it." Death stated with knowing eyes and Harry blushed slightly, cursing his pale complexion, "It is understandable." Death assured him, "It was a part of you for the formative years of your live. It was a time you were almost defenseless and even though you did not know it was there, your subconscious knew you were not alone. It gave you a lot of comfort when you were in the cupboard under the stairs."
Harry looked down, not able to stand the look in those knowing eyes. Some part of him had already known that he had missed the Horcrux, but it was different having it spoken out loud by someone else. How fucked up must he be to miss a piece of soul from someone who wants to kill him? It certainly didn't bode well for his mental stability. Not that he cared about it now, but it did make him wonder how things would have turned out if war hadn't broken out with the muggles. Would insanity have claimed him too if he had lived a normal life? Was his desire to cause chaos and death because he wanted revenge or was it something that had always been there but that he had ignored? All in all those things didn't matter now, but he couldn't help but wonder.
"Do you want to go back now?" Death asked an understanding smile on his lips and Harry looked back up.
"Yes, but let a few seconds pass for him to organize his thoughts."
"I doubt that a few seconds will do much good." Death chuckled and Harry laughed, then everything went black and he felt himself fall.
Voldemort was looking at the body on the floor of his office incredulously. He closed his eyes for a few moments then opened them again. The body was still there. There went the possibility of it being an hallucination.
He had killed Harry Potter. Disregarding the fact that Potter was in his house, he had always thought that when he finally killed Harry Potter it would be more exciting. Probably in front of a crowd, to destroy their hope. This confrontation, if one could call it that, was rather anticlimactic.
Then something happened that he didn't think was possible.
Potter groaned and sat up.
Instinctively he shoot another killing curse at him, hitting him in the chest. Potter fell over, again. After getting up when he had only moments before been hit with a killing curse. This would be the third time he had hit Potter with an Avada Kedavra, what was that muggle saying again? Third time is the charm, or something like it, wasn't it? Maybe now Potter would do the socially accepted thing and actually stay dead after being hit with the killing curse.
For a few moments he could do nothing but stare. He couldn't believe that he was actually thinking about muggle sayings. Maybe he was losing his mind. Spending thirteen years as a spirit couldn't be good for one's sanity.
"Back again?" Death asked and Harry could hear the amusement in his voice, he didn't even need to look at him to know he was smirking.
"Yeah, yeah." he grumbled, "Send me back already."
The last thing he heard before everything went dark was Death's laughter.
Voldemort didn't know if he should be surprised or not when Potter got back up. He controlled his first instinct of hitting him again with a killing curse. Didn't people say that the height of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results? So he just observed Potter and tried to understand what was going on, because clearly Potter didn't have the decency to be an hallucination or to just stay dead.
"I swear to Merlin, if you don't stop hitting me with killing curses I'm going to slap you silly." Potter snapped, standing up. "Can we talk or are you going to continue with the Avada Kedavras?"
Voldemort just continued to look at him incredulously. Well, he had already ruled out an hallucination, but he could be dreaming. There was always that possibility, he could hope. Dear sweet Merlin, why couldn't he be an hallucination? It would be so much easier if he were an hallucination. It would be easier to explain too.
"I'm going to take that as a positive answer." Potter told him and sat in the armchair in front of his desk.
They were silent for a few moments, till Voldemort finally convinced himself that Potter was not, no matter how much he wished he was, an hallucination or a dream.
"Potter." he said, for lack of anything else. What could he say really? Do you want some tea? Oh by the way, why do you not just stay dead?
"Yes?" Potter asked, raising an eyebrow.
"What are you doing here?" That was a good question to start with, then he could follow it with others, such as: How did you know where I was? And the most important in his opinion: Why don't you stay dead?
"Truthfully I'm here because of three reasons." Potter replied looking rather calm for someone who was sitting in front of a Dark Lord who wanted to kill him. "First I came here to stop you from making a big mistake. Second I came here to give you your body back. Third I came here to tell you a story."
He stared at Potter for a few seconds then started to laugh. Maybe Potter was the one who had lost his mind.
"And what do you want in exchange for giving me my body back and for stopping me from making a big mistake." sarcasm saturated every word.
"I just want you to listen to me. I will even swear on my magic that what I'll tell you is nothing but the truth as I know it. You have nothing to lose in accepting."
He narrowed his eyes and tried to enter Potter's mind, only to find occlumency shields as strong as his. Surprised he studied Potter intentionally and now that he was actually looking at him he could see it. It was well hidden but he could see it. Power. Dark, seductive, deadly. This Potter was nothing like the light puppet he had meet three years ago.
"Are you being serious?" he asked, because now he was curious. There was something different about Potter and he wanted to know what it was.
"I came here, didn't I? If I wasn't, I wouldn't have come."
"Very well," he agreed, hardly believing what was coming out of his mouth. "What is this mistake that I am going to make?" he couldn't help but let a bit of sarcasm slip into his voice.
"The ritual for your resurrection." Potter told him, completely ignoring his sarcasm, "I know that you think that it is the only way to get your body back, now that the Philosopher's Stone is destroyed. And it seems like it'll work out rather well, but in the long run it won't. The unicorn blood, unwillingly given, will curse you. It will take from you what you value most. It's funny, for a while I believed that it was your life or your magic but it's actually your mind. If you proceed with the ritual, in three years time you will be so far gone that you do not even realize that you have already won, you will not even savor your victory and you will let your little sycophants destroy everything you ever fought for. You will obsess with one thing and ignore everything else. It will destroy you."
Voldemort wanted nothing more than to deny it and hit Potter with an Avada Kedavra. He didn't do it though, as he had seen before Avada Kedavra did nothing to the brat, aside from that he really wanted to know how Potter knew about the ritual. He had told no one what the ritual was or what he would need to use it. So how could Potter know?
"Why are you telling me that?" he asked, trying to understand this strange Potter sitting in front of him, "If it is going to destroy me, why are you trying to stop me? Isn't my destruction something that you wish? And how did you know where to find me?"
"I think it is rather obvious that I do not wish for your destruction, I want you to get a body back. The reason I want it is one of the things I have to tell you as well as how I knew where to find you. The question now is: do you want me to give you your body back?"
He really wanted to force Potter to tell him, but he didn't think it would work. Besides Potter did say that he would tell him everything. He knew that he should kill Potter and be done with it, but, not even taking into account that the killing curse didn't seem to work on him and he had no idea if something else would work, he was curious. He wanted to know what had changed. Potter was so different, people didn't change that much in three years, their magic didn't change that much in three years. Besides the promise of a new body was rather tempting. He didn't see how Potter intended to do it, but what had he to lose?
"Alright." he replied and Potter smiled.
"Excellent. It's the first time that I'm going to do it, but don't worry, theoretically I know how it works."
Before he could tell Potter that that wasn't particularly reassuring he felt something surrounding him and felt his soul being torn from his body. For a fraction of a second he felt nothing but fear. He didn't want to go back to be a wandering spirit, he hated it. He couldn't be that vulnerable again. Then the rage came. How could he have been so stupid! Why had he trusted Potter? He knew that people weren't to be trusted. How could he have allowed such a weakness. However before he could get lost in his hate and fear he felt something surrounding him again. He could feel a body around his soul, it was tiny, no bigger than an embryo, but he could feel it grow and develop. In about five minutes he was as big as a five year old child and he kept growing every second. He could do nothing but look at Potter incredulously.
Twenty minutes later the magic surrounding him left and he had to grip his desk so that he wouldn't fall. He was still looking at Potter who was sitting in the armchair, panting and with sweat dripping down his face.
"You are an elemental." he whispered roughly, his vocal cords appeared to need a little time to adjust. However that didn't really matter now. What mattered was that Potter, Potter, was an elemental! How was that possible? Weren't they extinct? How could Potter be one and be able to control his powers? Did Dumbledore know? If he did, it was no wonder that he wanted to use Potter as a weapon. Elementals were rumored to be pure power. They embodied the power of nature in it's purest form. Even the weakest elemental could destroy a small town in a fit of anger. If Potter was one it didn't really surprise him that the prophecy said he had the power to defeat him. He looked at the small form slumped over on the armchair and a hunger he hadn't felt in a long time filled him.
Potter looked at him, his eyes widened and he looked away.
"Er... Could you, you know, conjure some clothes for you?" Potter asked, looking anywhere but at him and he smirked. Who would have thought that Potter was so... innocent.
He picked up his wand, that had fallen to the floor and conjured a mirror, not at all in a hurry to conjure some clothes. He never had a problem with nudity, he didn't walk around naked, but he was comfortable in his own skin. Besides he rather enjoyed seeing Potter so flustered. Call it payback for causing him so much trouble. Well, it was time to see just what body Potter had given him.
He really wasn't expecting what he saw. He was looking at a twenty something Tom Marvolo Riddle. With all the rituals he had done he had lost his looks. It was something that he had accepted because no matter how useful his looks may have been he valued magic more. However looking at a mirror and seeing himself again felt quite good. He didn't know how much he had missed it till that moment. Though his eyes were still blood red. He was glad that those had stayed the same. His red eyes were him.
With a flick of his wand he conjured some clothes and turned around. A smirk appeared on his lips again when he saw that Potter still wasn't looking at him.
"You can turn around Potter." he told him, sitting on the armchair behind the desk. The magical constructed homunculus had turned to dust the moment his soul had left it. When the magic holding it together was gone it crumbled. "I'm waiting." he told Potter when he saw that Potter was just looking at him.
Potter sighed and nodded.
"Alright. I'm just going to do the magical oath." Potter told him taking his wand out, "I, Hadrian James Potter, swear on my magic that what I am about to tell Tom Marvolo Riddle is the truth as I know it, so mote it be." a soft golden light surrounded Potter for a few seconds then it slowly dissipated.
"As you must know, before I was born there was a prophecy made that Snape partially overheard and told you about. You know perfectly well what happened next so there is no need to go over it. What you don't know, what nobody knows, is how I survived. Until recently I didn't know either, but we will get to that in a little bit. Dumbledore assumed that my mother's sacrifice had saved me, so to keep me protected he left me with my mother's sister and created bloodwards. I spent the next ten years after that as a slave for those disgusting muggles, sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs. Not knowing what I was, who I was."
"What?" Voldemort snarled, "How dare they mistreat a magical child! They should be killed!"
"Feel free to kill them." Harry told him, slightly surprised with his reaction. Though maybe he shouldn't be. They had similar childhoods and this Voldemort still had his mind. From what he had learned about Voldemort after the war, before his fall he had never harmed children. It was true that there were children killed in raids, but they were never tortured and the children were only killed if the objective was to kill the whole family. It didn't happen all that often. He had been the exception and even then Voldemort had only hit him with the killing curse, no torture, no nothing. After everything he had seen he believed that the killing curse was a rather merciful way to kill someone. No pain, just death. Painless and fast.
He wasn't sorry about handing the Dursleys over to Tom on a silver platter either. He had never forgiven Petunia and Vernon for what they had done to their own grand-daughter when they found out she was magical. The little girl had been born a year or two before the war started and had her first case of accidental magic when she was six years old. Vernon and Petunia were taking care of her for the day because Dudley had been at work and her mother had been sick with the flu. They saw it happen. The bastards sold the little girl to a laboratory that wanted to make experiments on wizards and witches, by that time magical beings were seen as nothing more than animals by most people. The staff was quite happy to pay the Dursleys for her. He only knew about it because Dudley had called him, begging him to save Violet, his baby girl.
By the time they found her it was already to late. She had been with them only for a little over two days. It was unbelievable the amount of damage they had been able to do in such a short time. It had been far more merciful to end her suffering.
A week later the bodies of Petunia and Vernon were found, shot in the head. Dudley walked into the lab with a bomb strapped to his chest. He took the whole building down and more than half the staff. They found a letter addressed to his wife. From what he learned latter on he said that he did not want to live in a world where a sweet little girl, his innocent little flower, could be tortured just because she was different and people found it normal. He had said that if that was being normal than he would rather be a freak. Truthfully that was the only moment he could remember being proud of his cousin.
"I thought you were a muggle lover." Voldemort remarked, bringing him out of his thoughts.
"You thought wrong." Potter replied, his eyes cold. The shadows around him seemed to gain a life of their own and he felt the temperature drop suddenly, the whole atmosphere had an oppressing feeling.
Voldemort observed the change fascinated. He had read about how an elemental's emotions affected the elements, however one thing was reading about it, another completely different thing was actually seeing it. It was no wonder that elementals were as feared as they were and had been hunted to extinction. It disgusted him knowing what people did in name of the Light. Out of fear they labeled elementals as dark beings and hunted them down. They were powerful, but not all powerful. It varied, just like a wizard's power. They completely ignored the fact that all wizards were in some way elementals too, not true elementals like Potter was, but they were tied to the elements as well. It was true that true elementals were dangerous, but so were wizards. The hypocrisy of it sickened him. Power like the one Potter had should be treasured, not feared and hated.
Potter took a deep breath and everything went back to normal. He didn't take his eyes of Potter. That hunger was back. He wanted that power.
"You know what happened in my first year, you were there. In my second year I meet you again."
"No, you didn't." Voldemort interrupted.
"Yes, I did. Not you specifically but a version of you. Sixteen year old you, trapped in a diary."
He tensed and when he saw Potter's knowing eyes he snarled and pointed his wand at him.
"What did you do to it?"
"I destroyed it." Potter told him calmly and he had difficulty controlling his rage. "Calm down," Potter said, frowning, "I still have many things to tell you. We can talk about this when I'm done if you want to."
He took a deep breath and lowered his wand. He could kill Potter later for destroying his Horcrux, it was more important to know if Potter knew what the diary was and if he knew that there were more. How could he have found out? Maybe Dumbledore found out and told the brat. He needed to see if the others were safe. He couldn't risk more of his soul.
Potter told him about the rest of the year and even though he was still not happy about what had happened to his Horcrux, he understood. Potter hadn't even known that it was him he was facing and after he found out it was all about survival. If he had been in the same situation he would have done the same. Lucius on the other hand... Lucius would suffer for disobeying him.
Potter continued telling him about his third year. He didn't go into details, just a quick overlay of what had happened and how Wormtail ended up free.
When Potter reached his fourth year that was when things started to get quite interesting. Potter told him about the tasks and what he did in them and he wanted to speak up, but one look from Potter shut him up. He almost wasn't able to hide his incredulity as Potter told him about the ritual he would have performed if Potter hadn't given him his body back. The duel that Potter described was just as unbelievable. Unfortunately Potter didn't stop there and continued on to his fifth year. He was so transfixed that he didn't even react when he heard the whole prophecy. He would have time to think about it later. By sixth year he wanted to deny every word that was coming out of Potter's mouth, but he couldn't. Potter knew too much for it to be a lie. Besides he could see it in his eyes. Those eyes showed everything. Potter was being honest, he was telling the truth. Of course there was also the little matter of the magical oath that Potter had taken, so he knew that he was telling the truth, however that didn't make it less unbelievable.
He never thought that he would feel relieved when he heard about his death. He now understood what Potter had meant when he said he would have been to far gone. He sounded like a rabid dog and rabid dogs should be put down. He had never wanted to destroy the wizarding world. It was his home, the place he truly belonged. The world that Potter had described was nothing like he had envisioned. No matter what happened he would never allow himself to lose his mind. He knew that he wasn't the sanest person around, even when he was younger he knew that he wasn't quite normal, but he had never lost his mind. He had always been rational. He prided himself on being one of the most brilliant minds that the wizarding world had ever seen, to lose that to insanity and not even noticing, was truly horrible.
"We had peace for around nineteen years, though in the blink of an eye everything changed. One day we were living our lives and the other we were being hunted. The muggles found out about us."
For a few moments they didn't say anything, Harry lost in his thoughts and Voldemort trying to understand what he had heard. Because there was no way that he had heard right, it had to be wrong.
"What?" his voice was low and deceivingly calm, "How?"
"The muggle prime minister exposed us. We found out later that he was a squib that hated us for having what he didn't. He was adopted by a good family, had a rather good life, even his magical family cared for him. The only reason they gave him up for adoption was because they believed he would have a better life with the muggles, though they did tell him he was free to visit them every time he wanted and they even opened a Gringotts vault for him. There were no tragic events in his life. He just hated us, envied us.
"He exposed our world to the muggles and since he was a squib he knew how to obtain the information needed to prove it. The religious fanatics were the first to adhere to campaigns to exterminate us or to put laws in place that would see us as no better than animals. I still can't believe how fast the laws to deny us any human rights were put in place. They could do anything to us and they wouldn't be punished. For the first two years there were still muggles who cared. They fought for our rights. That was when they started to distribute information about Grindelwald and how he helped Hitler during World War II. They said that Hitler would never have gotten as far as he had if it weren't for the wizards. From helping Hitler to creating Hitler wasn't that much of a stretch in their minds. Soon wizards were blamed for everything bad that had ever happened, even natural catastrophes. For the first time ever the whole world was in agreement. What did they care if they worshiped different gods, or if they had different skin colors? They had finally found a common enemy. Wizards. The church saw this as an opportunity and the Inquisition was reinstated. The war that followed was... I don't think there is a word that could describe it. Many of us preferred to kill themselves than to be captured by the Inquisition. When we saw how bad it had gotten we believed that our wards would keep us safe. We were wrong.
"Hogwarts... Hogwarts was completely destroyed. They targeted it because they knew it was a school. They didn't care that they were killing innocent children. In their eyes they had magic so they had to die. I still remember the smell of blood, fire and burned flesh.
"I had to dig out the broken and burned body of my daughter form the ruins. My little Lily was the first of my children to die."
Potter stopped and took a deep breath. For the first time in a long time he didn't know what to do. A part of him didn't want to hear anymore, he didn't want to know what nightmarish world Potter had left behind. However a bigger part of him wanted to know more, wanted to know everything. What Potter was telling him may be unbelievable and he may want to write it of as Potter having lost his mind, but those eyes... Those eyes didn't lie. It was impossible to fake such pain. For a fraction of a second Potter look like a tired old man who had seen to much and lost everything a man could lose instead of the fourteen year old teenager that had his whole life ahead of him.
"Even after everything they had done they weren't satisfied. They started using nuclear weapons."
"What?" he whispered. He couldn't believe that the muggles would use nuclear weapons. He knew what kind of destruction those weapons caused, didn't they realize the damage they would do?
"Yes, I didn't even know there were so many of them. Before that they had resorted to biological weapons, but those didn't hurt us all that much, our magic protected us from most of what they threw at us and they were never able to get their hands on any wizarding diseases. They killed far more muggles with it than magical beings. But they didn't care. If they had to kill one hundred muggles to get one wizard then they saw it as a success. Stupid idiots." Potter sneered and he agreed, even though the muggles outnumbered them it would be stupid to use such weapons knowing that they were killing more of their own race than magical beings. "They destroyed the planet. Large animals were all but extinct, vegetation wouldn't grow, the rain was toxic. The planet was dying.
"When the muggle shot me there were only a handful of wizards left. Not that the muggles were doing much better. The big cities were practically deserted and there was no cluster of civilization that had more than one hundred people. The men and women became infertile, even if they survived on the dying planet it would become impossible to repopulate. It was one of the consequences of the radiation and the biological weapons. One of them was a virus that was supposed to affect our sperm. It did nothing to us, but the muggles... That, combined with everything else that they created, was enough to make even most animals infertile. There hadn't been any births or pregnancies in the last six years. Either way the muggles were doomed."
Voldemort couldn't really imagine a world like that. It was a true nightmare, his darkest fears come to life. He had lived through World War II, he had witnessed the bombings. He had always wondered what would happen if all that destructive force was aimed at them. Now he knew and wished he didn't.
"I died and woke up in an office..."
Well... Maybe he should be thankful that Potter didn't appear to want to fight him. Death's son. Fate really hated him, didn't it? How in Salazar's name was he supposed to win against Death's son?
"That's how I survived. I was born an elemental, even though I didn't know how to control the elements, they still reacted to my emotions. The Life element reacted to my fear and distress and sucked the life force around me to counteract the Avada Kedavra. The two opposing elements collided, Avada Kedavra is closely linked to the element Death, which made the Avada Kedavra rebound. Death gave me the control over my ability. That's how I gave you your body back. I had your soul, so I only needed to develop the life that it already had. Of course I wouldn't have been able to do it if you were truly dead. There are also my limits to consider. It seems that I don't have the energy to age you more than twenty-five years, if I had continued it is likely that I would have died. Well, considering everything I wouldn't have stayed dead, but you understand what I mean."
"Why did you come back?" he asked when Potter stayed silent for a while. He suspected he knew the answer but he wanted to hear Potter say it.
"I am going to kill them all." Potter replied and for a few moments it looked like he was looking Death in the face. No, not Death. Death's son. He couldn't stop a shiver running down his spine. It was difficult to see the Light's puppet that he had meet a few years back when he was looking into killing curse green eyes that shone with deadly intent. He wondered how Dumbledore would react if he knew what his little pawn had become. He really wanted to be there when he found out. And he would find out. He doubted that Potter would play the student for much longer.
"Oh, I almost forgot, I have your Horcrux again. Can I keep it or do you want to transfer it to another receptacle?"
He had almost forgotten that little detail. Potter was his Horcrux. Death's son was his Horcrux.
"You are truly immortal." he remarked, "I will be too, as long as my soul stays with you. What do you want?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. Both of them knew that Potter had all the carts in his hand. He was in a rather disadvantageous position and both knew it.
"I want an alliance between us. However the safety of your Horcrux isn't depended on it. I will keep your Horcrux safe for as long as I have it with me, regardless of your decision on this matter. I want you to ally yourself to me because you want it, not because you think I will destroy your soul if you don't."
Well, Potter continued to surprise him. If anyone else had told him that he wouldn't have believed them. Potter on the other hand... He had no reason to lie and again those eyes were giving him away. His face may be emotionless but his eyes betrayed him.
"I need to think." he told Potter, because he truly did. He was almost certain that he would accept but he needed to organize his thoughts. Potter had told him so many things, he needed time to look all of it over.
"Alright. You can contact me through Barty." Potter told him and got up.
He nodded and Potter waved before leaving his office whistling. He shook his head, why did he have the feeling that his life had just become a lot more complicated?
A.N.: Hello all :) Thank you all for your support. The response to Death's Son has been amazing and I couldn't be happier :D
So, a few people were wondering if this was going to be a political fic. The answer is no. Sure, there is going to be some politics but the whole story won't be about that. Harry doesn't care all that much about politics, he wants to kill the muggles and that's about it. Tom will be the one playing politics and it will be only so that they can avoid the whole muggle finding out about them. Neither of them care about getting control through politics, they will be perfectly happy if they have to cause a bloodbath to get what they want, they would even enjoy it more. Harry isn't all that light anymore, he won't kill those he considers his friends but anyone else his fair game.
Hope you enjoy this chapter. Next chapter there will be more Tom and Barty will be added to the mix... I love Barty, Harry will torment him so much, as well as Lucius and the LeStrange brothers. Poor Death Eaters they won't know what hit them...